Smokepurpp Quotes

Half the battle is selling music, not singing it. It's the image, not what you sing.

The marketing is just as important as the music, almost.

I try to create an image to suit my music. These days, you have to create your own personal brand as an artist. It's not about just putting music out any more unfortunately.

It is all about marketing; that is where the real craft comes in. The best actors do not necessarily become the biggest stars. And vice versa.

If you are the record label who owns Lady Gaga, and you have a new artist coming up, you can say, 'Let's have the artist play just before Gaga.' Now you've exposed the huge Gaga audience to the new artist. It's similar to showing a trailer before a movie. The hit creates a hit.

Well, I was making a record, and I had to choose a name, because they said, you know, you can't make a record under the name of Reg Dwight, because it's never going to - you know, it's not attractive enough.

A real foolproof way to do it is play your stuff by hook or by crook and build up a grass roots following.

They were marketing me as a teen idol, when the stuff on the record was not what teen idols were doing at the time.

As a new artist there's always outside influences trying to tell you how to make a song better for radio and how to do your hair.

To pursue a career in Hollywood you have to have a personality bypass. Look at the top 20 stars in the world - there's probably only two actors among them. Hollywood's not about you as an actor. It's about your currency, what you 'bring to the table'. And I've never been one to jump through hoops for anyone.

I think some people think I'm, like, anti-label, and I'm not. I just wanted to sign a deal when the time was right. I'm anti being shot out of a rocket when you're not ready and the songs and image aren't there.

There are certain people who have become better artists, but they're brilliant at marketing. I think someone who's been phenomenal like that is Madonna.

The music and everything we're doing on the stage and on television backs itself up. If that's what gets people's curiosity going or brings their attention to us, that's fine.

Target is one of the best at really listening to the artist and understanding what they are about.

It's show business. No show, no business.

'American Idol,' for me, is fizzling out. They can't package me, man... I'm an artist that's created this concept but used the 'American Idol' machine as a marketing tool.

I look at the artists as mini media companies, like if Beyonce is ESPN and Lady Gaga is Discovery.

I feel like everything we do comes down to how it looks. Even no branding is branding. For example, you had no face or image to put to my music at first. That was branding.

Labels are curators of taste, and the best ones know how to monetize what an artist is trying to do.

We had to take full advantage of the fact that we wanted to be one of the most creative bands out there that's getting backed by one of the biggest companies.

You got a lot of girls out there that can rhyme and are underground, but it's sex appeal that makes people really big.

I had it just Lil Nas at first because every rapper has a 'lil' in front of his name, and that's funny to me. But then I got stuck with it because I already built a fan base at that point.

Those people are corny. You think I'm rolling to a club with Lyor Cohen or John Meneilly?

I want to lead the pack in the process of making Indian singers bigger than actors internationally.

Maybe I thought the movie business would be a little bit different than the rock n' roll business, but, in fact, they're the same animal, just packaged differently.